I know that there are at least <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=20790.0">a few folks here doing printing with <a href="http://www.rpiprint.com/">RPI / <a href="http://www.us297.alphagraphics.com/">Alphagraphics, and I'm wondering-  is anyone else is seeing delays or problems with them since the acquisition?

So far our problems haven't been that extreme, yet, but the response time from our contact has dropped off to almost nothing.  We started our latest print job by getting a quote from them back in August.  Two weeks ago, we told them we were ready to go ahead with printing, and that we were interesting in talking about other kinds of print work (playing cards).  Since then, we've been given nothing but periodic excuses- no proof, no expected shipping dates, no further information on Alphagraphics services. 

I'm certainly not ready to change printers yet, and I recognize that transitioning to the Alphagraphics systems would result in a few bumps, but I'd like to get a sense of just how much trouble it's causing.

So, two questions:
1) Who else is using Alphagraphics (particularly, who that was using RPI before)? 
2) Is anyone else seeing problems with their service?

Steve wrote:
1) Who else is using Alphagraphics (particularly, who that was using RPI before)? 
2) Is anyone else seeing problems with their service?

This may be your rep. If it's Brian Good, he's cocked up almost everything I've tried to do. When he spontaneously went on vacation the day I needed to start my print run, I wound up talking with Larry McGoff who fixed everything.

My rep Katy Byrom quit the week before GenCon. I have a new guy, Will Sinclair. He seems pretty good, but his responsiveness is definitely slower than Katy's used to be. On the other hand, since all I am trying to do is pay them, it's not such a bad thing. My second print run on Mortal Coil went smoothly.

They were reluctant to actually have me pay, too. I even called and left a message asking to pay them. A month later, my rep emailed me, asking me to email him my credit card number. I called and left it on his voicemail and asked for him to email me when the credit card went through. He didn't. It wouldn't have mattered if it was a small amount, but it was $1200. That's kind of a lot.

Brennan, it sounds like we're in the same boat.  Katy always did right by us, and Will is starting to wear out my patience.  It occurs to me that Katy may have seen which way the wind was blowing with Alphagraphics and quietly folded her hand...

Thanks for the feedback, in any case.  Perhaps if I can't get through to our rep tomorrow, I'll try to contact Larry McGoff instead.

Larry McGoff is my rep. Up until this July/Aug, my only complaint with him was that he wasn't always in the office, so I wouldn't always be able to reach him by phone (my preferred method). But he usually emailed back within 24 hours.

However, right before GenCon his customer service dropped a little. Besides being a little less responsive, I needed a minor color issue with cover fixed (the fault was theirs). I told him I didn't need a second proof (I was running late for GenCon) if he visually confirmed it was corrected. But it wasn't corrected. There was also big shipping SNAFU, but he arranged to give me a discount to make up for it.

Also, like others, I only got my invoice like, last Friday or something for my print run at teh beginning of Aug.

But I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, at least for the moment. GenCon was in the middle of their big transition. As long as they clean things up, I'm OK with them. If their customer service remains sloppy, I might look around a bit.

Hello,

I will offer a word of unsolicited advice. The big lesson for me from 2007 was to learn to let go of my favored printer, when I realized that I was compensating and re-compensating for less and less value from them. It opened my eyes enough to see, as well, how many fellow publishers were also being over-tolerant.

The beginning of my situation can be found in [It Was a Mutual Decision] Case study for discussion. You can see there that I was encountering hassles but was willing to forgive. The problem was that this was beginning to be a repeated situation - it always got fixed, but I was always inconvenienced. Before this year, that company had been excellent for me, but now, a negative pattern had begun to appear.

Now, I had a crucial print job in the early summer, for non-Forge stuff. I nailed down the deal with the owner of the company, being explicit about the dates. Guess what ... I didn't see a proof, I didn't see anything. I waited (like an idiot) in good faith until the crisis-date came, then called to discover that the company didn't exist any more, and that the guy had been calling in a favor from someone who did have a company to get the books printed. And he'd totally screwed up the date.

Snap. I'm dumb, but I do learn eventually. I hit the search engine and found some printers easily and quickly. Their prices were as good or better. The one I chose, Publishers Graphics, did an amazing job just in time. Since then, they've reprinted Elfs and It Was a Mutual Decision for me, and in this case, the books themselves were better made and better printed from their original versions.

The lesson I learned was that many POD printers exist. They all want your business and you really can pick and choose ... and we should not cease to do so, as an ongoing part of doing business. That goes against my inclinations. I tend to find a company I like and stick with them through nearly anything out of a sense of mutual professional alliance. That's a personal feature of mine that often serves me well, but in this case, is a really bad idea to be stuck with. I think a lot of you guys are similar. Also, it's a pretty big psychological step, in self-publishing, to enter into a printing contract. Changing printers feels like starting all over, or taking a step backwards. Which it's not.

Tim - speaking directly - you need to drop RapidPOD. They simply aren't serving your needs and if you search your mind, you'll discover that you're staying with them only out of misplaced loyalty, for the quality they produced on your first print run. I've been making sure to post the link to Ind-e-pubs printer list in a lot of threads lately, and I'm doing it again for you specifically. There is absolutely no reason not to start canvassing the list for available printers.

And guys? It's better to do it when you are not facing a deadline or a problem with your current printer. If I'd had the brains to figure that out before hitting the crisis date, 2006 would have been a much better year.

Best, Ron

Word, Ron.  Based on various threads here and informal feedback from other designers, I sort of saw a situation where we had to chose from an array of sub-optimal possibilities.  RPI won because they sucked the least - in their case, the product was more expensive, but service and quality were first rate.  Other options were cheaper, but service and/or quality suffered.  So now if RPI is slipping in the categories that made them a good fit for us, I do feel like we're starting over if we switch to another vendor, one with a different price/service/quality equation and a host of unknowns.  It's frustrating and I'm not sure what we'll end up doing. 

Lesson learned, though - this is all happening at the exact moment we need to do a re-print.  Thanks for your thoughts.

After reading Ron and Jason's comments, I almost want to see the following:

1) A review site that lists publishers, and allows people to log in and rate them, and share their experiences with them.

2) However, the site "archives" the rating and starts over at "0" every year or six months or so, so that you can re-rate them in a later year/period.

There would be a yearly/6-month rating, and an "overall" rating.

It would be a way to rate printers, and at the same time be able to track quality ups and down over time without being enslaved to one rating ("From 2002-2005 they were awesome. In 2006 the company is falling apart; and yet the overall review says "5 stars" and I cannot re-rate them based on my latest experiences").

Hmmm.

Both of my print runs for Universalis I used a web based print quote engine, put in my parameters and got back quotes from 6-10 different printers for the range of different run sizes I was interested in. 

Turns out some printers that are really competitive at 500 copies aren't at 200.  Interestingly, some (like Avalon which doesn't scale for volume) are very competitive at the 50-100 range but totally out of the picture at the 500-1000 range.  The printer that can do 500 copies of a certain size very competitively might not be equally competitive at 500 copies of a different size. 

So my advice is even after you've found a printer you like...always go through the bid process.  Its totally painless, you just fill out a web form with your specs and they email you over the next few days.  If your favorite printer is in the competitive range and has given you good service in the past, then stick with them.  Strengthening the relationship is worth not chasing best price (I also throw out any outliers to the low side as being questionable).  However, if they're way off the mark, then you can negotiate with your rep and if needed switch.

For the record I used Publishers Graphics several years ago to do the second run of Universalis, and lo and behold they were also the most competitive priced printer for the new revised version as well. 

I've had great communication from them and they got my proofs and finals to me several days BEFORE the deadline. 

I'll definitely be giving them the opportunity to do my next book as well.  But they aren't going to be the only folks I get bids from, even though they'll definitely have an edge.

Ralph, where's that handy print quote webform you mentioned?

Don't know if this is what Ralph was talking about, but if you join the Game Publishers Association, you get access to their online quote service.

I've requested bids through this printindustry.com form:

http://www.printindustry.com/cgi-local/new_forms1.cgi?value=dupform.htm&sid=

Paul

I think PrintIndustry was the one I used.

But theres also PrintQuote and PrintQuoteUSA.